sweet sweet dark
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: Itachi lives in a world of darkness defined by a gentle voice that calls him "Niichan". Or the one where Itachi loses his memories.


**not spellchecked or anything so apologies for the errors**

when sasuke first said "i love you" itachi's paper thin face crumbles at the edges like the paint chunking off the old walls of the compounds, and he whispers softly "no", spidery hands with crooked long fingers that heve broken too many times flying to cover his parted chapped lips and he shakes his head "no, no, no..."

he practically runs out of the house, and is gone for hours. he forgets his cane. when he comes back he smells like tears and the river, and sasuke knows he has been to shisui's shrine again.

the next time sasuke says i love you he is helping itachi into bed. his brother just shakes his head and turns to sleep on his side, his thin back facing sasuke.

the thing is that many things can make itachi cry these days. the tears slip beneath the thick white bandages that cover his sightless eyes, salty, and sometimes pinkish with blood. itachi is made of grief and loneliness and dead people's accusations. the thing is, itachi is fragile right now, physically and mentally, the thing is he may never be alright again

(sasuke hid all the knives, the razors, the scissors, sasuke did, hid all the cleaning materials, he had to, and it was surprisingly hard to hide them from a blind man and he didn't let itachi go to the river alone for the longest time and -

_i dreamt about him sasuke i dreamt about him he was angry he wanted me to be with him i promised him forever oh god -)_

__but sasuke serves his i love yous relentlessly day in and day out, serves them with the tea and the dango, with the meticulously cut meals, with his lavish gifts, maps them out with his fingers on itachi's naked back while dressing him in the mornings and undressing him in the evenings, while his brother acts like a porcelain doll, beautiful, brittle and unresponsive, threatening to crack at the slightest pressure, as if he couldn't handle the world around him, not right now, not with his blindness, with his illness with his pain, guilt, sadness -

he likes to sit by the window in his room when there is bright sunlight in the mornings, his hands clasped demurely in his lap and -

_father hits itachi a lot and yells at him about honor and he kicks itachi around and he slams him into walls and the clan, the clan, the clan and niisan cries and apologizes softly and walks properly and talks properly and speaks properly and when he thinks sasuke is asleep sneaks into his room to hug him and cry and - _

__sometimes itachi cries without realizing it, just sitting somewhere, maybe in the garden or in the kitchen with sasuke and the tearswould fall silently, and sometimes it would be while he is talking and

(he talks slowly, with long pauses wighing each word he says carefully and it's the most painful thing in the world)

sasuke wants to shake him sometimes and hit his perfect face and break tht brittle porcelain mask and yell "are you even hear can you hear me can you see i am killing myself trying" but most importantly "niichen i am sorry i love you i am sorry come back please please this is killing me niichan niichan stop stop STOP"

and months go by, yellow leaves falling down the rain upsetting the lazy muddy waters of the nakano with the candles on shisui's shrine going out as soon as itachi lights them with his shaky hands, his joints swollen red, inflamed, and he comes home silent as usual, leaning on his cane heavily, walking like everything hurts, always, always, and always sasuke dries him up, dresses him in new dry soft clothes and tucks him between the warm blankets like "niichan, come on now lay down, see how warm it is, feel the fabric of the sheets, isn;t this blanket so soft niichan - "

his voice breaking a little more everytime.

the first time the voice tells him "I love you" he breaks down on the truth that his world has burned, but he can't, can't, can't - he pushes that truth aside. he brushes it off in the deepest parts of his mind, banishes it in the same mental folders that host the tsukuyomi and never thinks about it again.

Itachi lives in the dark, behind his lids, he isn;t sure if he can actually see or not he never tried opening his eyes, the soft linen on his bandages feels nice and comfroting over his tired burning lids and the world is ugly without shisui in it, without mother without - he likes the dark.

his dark is always warm and soft. there are tender callused hands that dress him and set meals in front of him and offer sweet smelling bitter tea, there is a deep voice that calls him niichan so sweetly and lovingly and tells him he is loved and cared for, itachi's world is the dark and it revolves around the soft tender voice and the pain, but the hands that go with the voice make the pain go away so then just the man (it must be a man, men have such deep voices) remains to be the center of his world. Itachi is acutely aware that he should know who this man is, that he should know who is calling him niichan, but learning that would require learning where shisui and mother are and he doesn't want to know they just AREN'T THERE he doesn't miss father as much, father wouldn't let him have seconds, and father had big heavy hands that left bruises and a rough nasty voice, father -

maybe the man with the pretty voice made father go away and took mother and shisui somewhere safe where they wouldn't be hurt. itachi likes the sun, his room has a big window, he sits by it and feels it on him and thinks about what soft hands mother had and shisui's laugh and the man with the gentle voice that he doesn't know or understand. he likes going to the river too, there is a shrine he isn;t sure why. going there makes him cry a lot, so maybe it is the shrine of someone he knows and

- itachi what are you doing itachi stop itachi -

he has nightmares about a boy with a beautiful laugh that may or may not be shisui and -

he doesn't like remembering.

-fin-


End file.
